This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
No, I demand that they be explicitly recognized as a carve out for people who can't cut it otherwise instead of some kind of deserved response to perceived unfairness that some disadvantaged people are entitled to. I see the whole argument of whether or not to allow trans-women to participate as a red herring, as it ignores the fact that the choice of exactly which people who would badly lose in an open tournament instead get to stand up and pretend to be among "the best in the world" is arbitrary anyway. EDIT: If it is truly about "fair" competition, then there should be no problems facing off against trans-women or even men who perform at the same level. That there is a desire to exclude shows this is entirely about the resulting status.
I am a woman and I can recognize that the athletes in women's competitions have a similar strength as myself. I don't really have a problem looking at a female Olympic swimmer and saying, "Yeah, she's way better than me at swimming. She trained very hard to get there." She is "best in the world" in a category I belong to.
Meanwhile, I could look over at the high school boys team and say, "They are going through the exact same training regimen as myself, I'm even practicing in the same lane as some of them, but their race times are still faster than mine. Sexual dimorphism is weird." It's like we were two different species. I wouldn't try to race a barracuda.
I'm not arguing "fair competition" though some are in this thread. I'm arguing largely "freedom of association," our long lost freedom's last vestige. It should be possible for people with particular handicaps to set up leagues that only people with those specific handicaps can participate in. Why might they do this? if it doesn't appeal to you, don't worry about it. It appeals to a lot of people, hence Women's and Paralympic Games.
Sure. Now think of how boys who have physical development issues feel when they put in more effort than said girls, get less results because of their development issues, and are then told "tough luck, you lost the genetic lottery" while they see the girls who didn't work as hard as them celebrated. I have no problems with the existence of women's leagues. I only take issue with the lack of humility some people exhibit in demanding to be considered the equal of people who they have explicitly excluded from competing with them while sneering at those with other types of disadvantage.
Do people sneer at Junior Varsity, Paralympics, and club sports? In the US at least we seem to be happy that someone's moving around at all, and will set up leagues for all sorts of ability levels and shower them with participation awards until kingdom come.
nobody sneers at those things, but nobody really watches them either unless you personally know someone on the team. But meanwhile the women who win gold medals are showered with prizes and fawning acclaim. It's ridiculous.
In the US, a bigger issue than the olympics is college athletic scholarships. There's only so many, and they're required to give them out equally to men and women, and all the men's are used up with the football and basketball teams. So colleges go out of their way to recruit women for relatively obscure sports like lacrosse or field hockey, give them a huge boost to admissions and possibly a full scholarship. Meanwhile the men who are objectively better at those sports get nothing, and often not even a division 1 team to play in. This is expliclitly and openly used to promote feminism by showing that "women can do anything that men can do," even though women are already ahead in college admissions. The ones at elite schools then go on to become management consultants or whatever, with the power to promote feminism in the workplace, while the men get sidelined. It's a very deliberate and intentional effort to take away something that men are obviously better at and give affirmative action to women.
I will not defend Title IX. The rest of your comment reads like a "sour grapes" complaint. If people like to watch something, buy merchandise, etc, shouldn't they be allowed to do so? And if other groups do not inspire such a fandom, unfortunate for them but they can't force people to appreciate their matches.
Women's sports isn't as popular as male sports, so it's not as if there isn't some bias for excellence in what people prefer to watch.
It's tough to find the right words to write about this without sounding unhinged or sour grapes. I personally don't care about sports at all, I just recognize that other people care about it. And I find it... odd, that there seems to be this huge push at all levels to promote women's sports far above whatever the normal baseline interest would be.
Like, I have never in my life met anyone who did female boxing. As far as I know it just didn't exist in my town growing up, unless there's some weird underground female boxing club I wasn't aware of. There was nothing to stop it, women just weren't interested in getting punched in the face. And yet apparently we need this huge international tournament to promote it, with endless television hype and big cash prize for whatever woman brings home the gold? Seems fishy.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
College crew was known for years as the Title IX destroyer. Our men's team didn't own any boats, we borrowed them from the women's team, who happened to own twice as many as they needed.
I should also note, I watch a decent amount of women's sports. I used to catch a lot of Roussey's championship bouts, and my mother and I watched a lot of Caitlin Clark's basketball games last year. It's perfectly possible to make an entertaining and profitable women's product, doing so just often goes against the ideology they're trying to promote. I actually think social media has had a salutary effect, hot Olympians can do the influencer thing, which encourages an emphasis on physical beauty, which makes it all more entertaining.
More options
Context Copy link
That’s not true in the Ivy League lol.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link